The Mammoth Book of Hollywood Scandals (54 page)

Once again speaking to reporters afterwards, the actress declared jail would give her time to write a book, and that a famous restaurant had promised to deliver food to her three times a day. She then told everyone she was heading home to swim in her pool, and zoomed away from the court in her flashy Rolls-Royce.

In the end, Zsa Zsa Gabor was sentenced to three days in prison and 120 days community service. However, even that caused controversy when the actress was accused of not doing enough hours during her service. Thankfully for her, however, the community service boss came forward to stick up for the actress, surprising everyone by stating that instead of the 120 hours initially demanded, she had actually done eighteen hours over what she was supposed to do.

As for the jail term, Zsa Zsa and her team of lawyers appealed it for many months until finally they gave in. The actress went to the El Segundo Jail for three whole days, where she was said to have a room all to herself, and enjoyed daily visits from her husband.

When it was time for her to leave prison and head home, Zsa Zsa was met at the gate by the ever-present reporters. They all crowded round, shouting questions from every corner.

“What do you intend to do next?” asked one reporter.

“Go home for a hot bath.” she replied.

“And how was the food in prison?” asked another.

Zsa Zsa screwed up her face, took a breath and exclaimed, “It was terrible! I wouldn’t give it to my dog.”

And with that, she climbed into her waiting car, and was gone, her criminal days behind her.

The Viper Room nightclub is famous for its all-black exterior, the notorious celebrities who have walked through its doors and the fact that film star Johnny Depp was once a co-owner. However, on Halloween 1993, it became infamous as the scene where up-and-coming actor River Phoenix met his end, on the pavement right outside the front doors of the club.

Born on 23 August 1970, River Jude Phoenix grew up with his four siblings – Rain, Joaquin, Liberty and Summer – in what River himself described as a “hippieish” lifestyle. He wasn’t wrong; his family were extremely unconventional and at one point were part of a religious cult, which left them living in poverty to such a degree that Phoenix began playing guitar on the street just to earn enough money to support his hard-up family.

They were essentially nomads and enjoyed moving around a lot, settling in Venezuela for a time, as well as Puerto Rico, Oregon (where River was born) and Florida. However, it was while living in Los Angeles that the family’s fortunes were turned around, when an entertainment agent decided to sign all of the children to a management contract.

Aged ten, River Phoenix became a child actor, working on the TV show
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
before going on to TV movies such as
Surviving:A Family in Crisis
and
Circle of Violence: A Family Drama
. But it was in 1986 that the actor was really brought to the attention of the public, when he was cast as Chris Chambers in
Stand By Me
, a Rob Reiner movie based on a story by horror writer Stephen King. The film is a coming-of-age drama, telling the tale of four young boys who go on an adventure to find a dead body. It ends with the main character, Gordie, updating viewers on what happened to his friends as they grew up, revealing that the character played by River was stabbed and killed when trying to break up a fight in a fastfood restaurant. This revelation made a sad ending to the movie, but became even more poignant after the premature death of Phoenix just seven years later.

After
Stand By Me
was released, River’s career went from strength to strength and he was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for his role in
Running on Empty
(1988). He also became quite involved in the Los Angeles music scene, as well as going on to win the role as the young Indiana Jones in
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
(1989). It was this small but important role that would ensure that children of future generations would be aware of River Phoenix’s life and work.

But the actor’s successful career came crashing down in a tragic way at the end of October 1993, when River was partying at the new Sunset Boulevard club, the Viper Room. The establishment played host to many of Hollywood’s elite, including Johnny Depp himself, who could often be seen playing there with his band, “P”.

On the evening of 30 October, P were performing in the club when River Phoenix entered with his sister Rain, brother Joaquin and girlfriend Samantha Mathis. River had been making a movie,
Dark Blood
, and was in Los Angeles to film the last interior shots. Taking a night off, he had decided to party at the Viper Room, where shortly before 1 a.m., he entered the club bathroom. There, a dealer apparently offered the actor some kind of drug, the ingredients of which are still up for debate, though it is widely believed to have been a “speedball”, a combination of heroin and cocaine. River had already taken drugs that evening, but regardless of that he took what was offered to him and immediately became acutely unwell.

Staggering back into the club, the ailing actor told his friends he could not breathe, and the story goes that he then passed out in the club, before being dragged outside for some fresh air. Once there River Phoenix collapsed again and started to suffer seizures, while his friends tried to revive him and an ambulance was called. Paramedics arrived and later described that by the time they were able to work on the actor, he had already flatlined, right there on the pavement outside the Viper Room. At least one paramedic later said that he believed the actor was most likely dead or almost dead by the time he had managed to reach the exterior of the club.

The paramedics did all they could to save River, while at the same time rushing him by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They arrived at 1.34 a.m., and doctors continued the attempts to revive him, but ultimately were unable to do anything at all to save the actor’s life. At 1.51 a.m. on 31 October 1993 River Phoenix was pronounced dead. An autopsy was performed on the young star and it was revealed that the cause of death came as a result of lethal doses of cocaine and morphine, with his blood also containing ephedrine, marijuana and diazepam.

Back at the club, Johnny Depp and the other patrons were absolutely horrified that River Phoenix had died as a result of taking drugs in the club. The venue immediately closed and a sign was displayed outside which read: “With much respect and love to River and his family, the Viper Room is temporarily closed. Our heartfelt condolences to all his family, friends and loved ones. He will be missed. – All of us at the Viper Room.”

From all over Los Angeles, fans and the curious travelled to the nightclub in order to scribble graffiti on the wall near to the scene of River’s death, and proceeded to lay flowers, cards and other tributes. After that fateful evening, on the anniversary of River’s death the club would close on the orders of Johnny Depp. The sign “Gone Fishing” was placed on the door one year, and “Closed for Remodelling” the next. However, the crowds kept coming to the Viper Room to seek out the location of River’s death, and eventually the morbid curiosity took its toll. Co-owner Johnny Depp took the decision to sell his share of the club in 2004, after sources claimed he was “disgusted” at the endless stream of macabre passers-by.

Ironically, River Phoenix was known throughout the world as a clean-living vegan who was extremely anti-drugs and often appeared on chat shows to talk about the environmentally friendly politics he believed in. How long he had been taking drugs is not known, but apparently his father had been worried about his children’s involvement in the movie business for quite some time, and had asked all of them to give up their careers in order to help him with the family restaurant he had established in Florida. River assured his father that he would do just that, as soon as he had finished the films to which he was contracted.

Unfortunately for both of them, when River did indeed come back to his family, it was not in the way they had hoped. After his cremation, his ashes were taken back to the family ranch, where they were said to have been scattered around a tree; an apt place for the environmentally conscious young actor, who had always tried to remain close to his hippieish roots.

Madonna has never been shy of controversy and has courted many scandalous headlines over the years, but in 1995 there was one headline she most certainly did not want to see – the news that she was being stalked by a deranged fan.

Robert Dewey Hoskins was a homeless drifter when he developed an interest in the singer. However, his curiosity went far beyond buying her albums and seeing her on tour. For Hoskins, there was nothing he wanted more than to meet Madonna, and it didn’t take long for his obsession to enter dangerous territory when he decided that one day he would not only meet her, but make her his wife.

On 7 April 1995, Hoskins travelled to Madonna’s Hollywood home and scaled the forty-foot wall, intent on seeing the star for himself. He was out of luck, however, as she was not in, and he was quickly chased away by her bodyguard, Basil Stephens.

The very next day he returned with a deranged note. Ringing the gate until Madonna’s assistant, Caresse Henry Norman, finally answered, Hoskins demanded to speak to the singer. He was not pleased when told that she was out, and then proceeded to threatened to “slice Madonna from ear to ear”, and kill Norman along with everyone else in the house.

Minutes later, bodyguard Stephens arrived and was handed a religious leaflet on to which Hoskins had scrawled the words “defiled”, “I love you”, “You will be my wife for keeps” and “kiss kiss kiss kiss kiss”.

“It’s irrational,” Madonna later said in court. “It’s not based on reality. The person who wrote it was very sick.”

When Stephens refused Hoskins’s demands to give Madonna the paper, the man blew his top and threatened to kill the bodyguard. Things almost got very ugly when Madonna arrived home just minutes later on her bike, though thankfully Hoskins only managed to glare at her as she was quickly taken into the house.

“He had a really crazy look in his eyes and he was staring at me in a very strange way,” the star later testified. “I was actually very disturbed about the look in his eye.”

During later testimony, Madonna stated her belief that Hoskins did not try to harm her only because he didn’t recognize her, as she was wearing a cap, sunglasses and baggy clothing. The singer no doubt hoped that he would disappear from her life as quickly as he arrived, but she was wrong.

On 29 May 1995, Hoskins returned to the house once more. This time he threw several bags over the wall and then scaled it himself, landing roughly in the grounds of the house. He couldn’t believe his luck that he had actually got inside and began to trudge towards the front of the house, peering through the front door when he reached it. Of course, he didn’t count on being spotted by bodyguard Basil Stephens, who later testified that it “looked like he was bringing his bags and he was moving in”.

When Madonna’s bodyguards confronted Hoskins, he boldly announced that he lived on the property and he would see to it that they were fired for disturbing him. He was thrown out, but a short time later he was back, spotted next to the pool, dripping wet and wearing a pair of shorts. By this time the bodyguards had endured enough and demanded that Hoskins lie down on the ground. He didn’t and instead began to take clothes out of his bags and get dressed as though he were completely oblivious to the bodyguards being there.

Finally, as Stephens stood guard while his colleague went to check if the police had arrived, Hoskins made a sudden leap at the bodyguard, trying to choke him and get his gun from its holster. The incident ended badly when Hoskins was shot twice by Stephens, who believed he had killed him and ran to get help. Several minutes later he returned, only to find the stalker sitting near the pool with wounds to his stomach and arm. The bodyguard apologized for shooting Hoskins, to which he apparently replied, “No problem”, and was then taken to hospital by ambulance.

The case went to court in January 1996, after being stalled due to Madonna’s reluctance to face her stalker in court. Eventually she succumbed after being threatened with jail and a $5 million bail, though she did make a last-ditch request to be allowed to testify via video link, though this too was turned down.

Finally, the star entered the courtroom to give her version of events. Madonna looked terrified, and when asked how she felt, she took a deep breath. “I feel sick to my stomach,” she said, before going on to explain that she was incredibly disturbed to be sitting across the room from someone who had threatened her life not once, but repeatedly. “I feel we are making his fantasies come true,” she said, and then told the court that since the ordeal she had been absolutely terrified and had suffered nightmares as a result of the unwanted attention.

Things were made no better when Hoskins’s lawyer, John Myers, described his client as harmless and claimed that prosecutors should have only filed trespassing charges against Hoskins, since he had never tried actually to harm Madonna. He also upset the singer by calling her a “prima donna”; “she comes in here and she’s acting. She can’t stop acting,” he said.

The jurors did not agree, and it took them no time at all to find Hoskins guilty of one count of felony stalking, one of misdemeanour assault and three of making terrorist threats. A smiling Hoskins was eventually sentenced to ten years in prison, which led Madonna to release a statement saying, “I hope the outcome of this case lets other stalking victims know that the system can, and does, work.”

Apparently because of the “negative energy” that she felt the house had attracted, Madonna left her home, but it was not the end of her problems with Robert Dewey Hoskins. He was released from prison after serving his time, and since he was so deeply disturbed, he was eventually taken to a psychiatric hospital in Norwalk, California. Quite astonishingly, however, he was able to escape on 3 February 2012 and the Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement declaring that “Hoskins is highly psychotic when not taking his medication.” He was also described as having “very violent tendencies”.